Monday, December 21, 2009

Review: Jerin Falkner - Pyro Aesthetic

Jerin Falkner - Pyro Aesthetic2009, Pyro Aesthetic

Seattle’s Jerin Falkner is just like your typical girl next door. Typical, that is, until she steps onstage and her inner fire lights up the stage like a spotlight. Falkner has written over sixty songs since 2004, release four independent albums and being highly competitive in a host of songwriting competitions across the US. Falkner’s latest release, Pyro Aesthetic, is breathtaking.

Falkner opens with Count Of Three, sounding more than a bit like Sarah McLachlan. The arrangement is simply piano with electronic accoutrements; its one of the gentler, more ethereal kiss off songs I've heard. The melody and arrangement is a thing of beauty. Falkner goes to the other end of the spectrum with the frenetic Dance/Pop of Let Down, which is more reminiscent of the maniacal energy of Devo than any Alternapop chanteuse. Right In Front is back in the middle of the spectrum; a mid-tempo Pop tune that truly highlights Falkner's wonderfully textured voice. All of the songs thus far on Pyro Aesthetic are about or based on a relationship that's fallen or is falling apart. The trend continues on the rhythmically inspired Flight. The mood here is turmoil, and is delivered in a wonderfully upbeat arrangement that will inspire repeat plays. For You has a tragic cabaret feel, sounding like something Sarah Slean might have written. Falkner seems to have a knack for tragic beauty and melancholy in her melodies and it's never more apparent than on For You. Copy Me wanders over the borderlands between unusual and truly bizarre, wrapping Falkner's wonderful bit of madness in the golden hues of Pop Rock. The song is fun and vaguely danceable and breaks into total perspective distortion before returning to its roots. Falkner closes out with Sunrise, a wish for the light after a period of personal torment. It's a recovery and rebirth from the loss of a relationship that's detailed throughout Pyro Aesthetic; layered and multi-textured and beautiful in its singular sense of hope.

I knew nothing about Jerin Falkner when I sat down to listen to Pyro Aesthetic; but this is one amazing artist. Falkner walks to the beat of her own drummer, creating music somewhere in the Outlands beyond Sarah McLachlan where folks like Kate Bush, Tori Amos, Bjork and Sarah Slean frolic and play. Falkner's sense of melody is distinctive, and her ability to emote the tragedies of everyday life through both her piano and her voice is singular in nature. Pyro Aesthetic perhaps isn't perfect, but Falkner is working on her own lattice so even the imperfections become perfect parts of the whole. Pyro Aesthetic is brilliant; a Wildy's World Certified Desert Island Disc, and Jerin Falkner is just getting started.